Impact of the Language Policy of English Medium Elite Schools of Gujrat, Pakistan on the Language Practices of their Students

Abstract

In Pakistan, people can often speak three languages (Urdu, English, and a regional language). The de jure policy of the country encourages vernacular languages, but the de facto policy encourages the use of English and Urdu. No attention is paid towards the vernacular languages, especially Punjabi. Elite schools serve as instruments for the promotion of English. For this reason, Urdu and Punjabi languages are ignored by these schools. Consequently, the young generation is no more interested in speaking these languages. Keeping in view this situation,the current research investigates how the national language policy is being interpreted in elite schools regarding the use and non-use of language(s) in educational settings. It also pays attention towards the effect of school policy on the linguistic choices of stakeholders. For this purpose, data was collected from the branches of two elite schools (Beacon House and Lahore Grammar Schools) operating in Gujrat. The study adopted a mixed method (qualitative andquantitative) approach for data collection. For qualitative data collection an interview protocol was developed while the quantitative data was collected from (principals, teachers, students, and parents) through questionnaire. The responses to the questionnaire were analyzed descriptively through Statistical Package for Social Sciences, while a qualitative data analysis approach was applied for the analysis of the data collected from the interviews. The findings revealed that elite schools have their own policies. These schools have their own language policy and pay no heed to the government policy. This indicates that the language policy of elite schools plays a significant role in subtractive bilingualism. Due to the English only policy, the students are not interested in their mother andnational languages. Furthermore, theselanguages serve as identity markers for students; however, in practice they feel ashamed of speaking these languages.
 Keywords: elite schools, language planning and policy, learner’s identity,school language